celebrating
resistances
PEOPLES
WEEK
film
festival
resist globalisation, combat communalism, defend democracy
INDIAN SOCIAL ACTION FORUM
A124/6 1st floor,
Katwaria Sarai,
New Delhi 110 016
Email: insaf@vsnl.com
Web: http://www.insafindia.org
FILM details:
1. Closer to reality (We for Bhopal, 24
mins.)
We for Bhopal is a student group based in
Delhi University dedicated to the task of spreading awareness about the Bhopal
Gas Tragedy and related issues of environmental degradation and corporate
crime. On 2-3rd December 2004, Bhopal celebrated the 20th anniversary of what
has been described as the world’s worst industrial disaster. Of the 5 lakh
population, living in the vicinity of Union Carbide India Limited (now taken
over by Dow Chemicals), many continue to suffer the after effects of the 40
tonnes of MIC that leaked from inside the premises of the factory, killing 20,
000 and causing grievous to moderate to mild injuries to the rest. Given the
on-going nature of the tragedy there is an urgent need to apprise people of the
various aspects of the event.
We for Bhopal has come out with a report
titled “Closer to reality: Reporting on Bhopal 20 years after the Bhopal Gas
tragedy”. The 77-page report is the outcome of what the group describes as a
“project for gathering evidences”. 4 members of the team carried a handy cam
with which they took video clippings that was then shaped into a 24 minutes
film titled “Closer to reality”. The film reaches out to youth with the
important message that “many more Bhopals” are waiting to happen, unless and
until we do our bit to prevent them.
2. Kaippuneeru - The Bitter Drink (P
Baburaj & C Saratchandran, English/Malayalam, 30 mins.)
The People of Plachimada, a sleepy hamlet
in Kerala southern India, were excited when they came to know that the Global
Giant Coca Cola is setting up a bottling plant in their village. The year was
2000. But soon the People realized that the presence of the Multi National
Company like Coca Cola has its own problems. The bottling plant guzzles 100's
of 1000's of litres of ground water everyday. The neighboring wells have gone
dry. The quality of the ground water has also changed. It has become unfit for
use. Their agriculture has been affected by the changes in the water table and
by the solid and toxic effluents from the plant. The year was 2002. The People
of Plachimada, a majority of them tribals, launched a struggle against the most
powerful corporate company in the world, the Coca Cola. Their demand is to
close down the plant. The Bitter Drink documents the formative days of this
David and Goliath battle. The film is an updated version of the struggle, which
is two years old now.
3. Inganeyyum Oru Grammam - A Village Like
This (Shahid Kuttipuram, English subtitles, 40 mins.)
The film
chronicles a story that's all too familiar in these parts - the death of a
river that was the lifeline of many villages. Once the muse of poets and kings,
the Bharathapuzha, or the Nila as it's fondly called, is today barely a trickle
in the summer months. In most parts, the 209-km long river is covered with shrubs
and weeds, and looks more like an unkempt ground than a water body. Its
destruction has been rapid and steady. Over the past decade, unregulated sand
mining has all but devoured the riverbed, even as deforestation shrunk the
river's catchment areas. One year later, there is still no concerted movement
to regulate sand mining. And as trucks race to the middle of the riverbed to
collect sand, a bit of the river dies every day.
4. Dance With
Hands Held Tight (Krishnendu Bose, Eng subtitles, 62 mins)
92% of the rural households energy is met by firewood. The landless and the poor mostly women among them, procure 90% of this firewood from the forest commons. The sea supports livelihoods of 400,000 women just along the short 300 Kms of coast of Karnataka South Western India. This intense relationship of women and natural resources across the country, throws up a whole range of issues and questions. Does the policy recognize this intensity? Do we all at large value the knowledge systems, which may have developed among these women? How have women coped with coercion from state in their accessing of natural resources? This film tries to explore these questions through four focused engagements. The fisherwomen off the coast of Karnataka are today distraught and distressed. The fish catch on which they and their families have lived has gone down. Foreign boats have looted the Sea. The Apatani Women of Ziro, the NorthEastern state of Arunachal Pradesh have controlled their unique fish-paddy agriculture for many years. Their knowledge and commitment to work their fields is complete. But the future of this agriculture is unsure. The adivasi (indigenous people) and dalit (lower castes) women of Kashipur, Eastern Indian state of Orissa have taken their fight right into the courtyard of the state. And won! They fought with the forest department for the access and control of the wild Hill broom; they collected from their forests. And got the control after 5 years. And the women of Sonebhadra, central Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have braved bullets and physical abuse of the state to protect their land from being taken over.
5. The Source of Life for Sale (K P Sasi,
English, 70 mins.)
Across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, local people speak out against commercial interests
soaking up their water resources
Over 20 years ago, when I was in school, I
would have laughed at the idea of buying water at the price of milk. Water
flowed free. There was a long line of taps in school, standposts at every important
street-corner, mud pots near petty traders, and coolers and fountains in public
places. Now I buy and carry my PET bottles around with me whenever I travel. In
most cities, public water taps are hard to find. And I dread the rusted leaky
ones I do come across, amid heaps of dirt, in some corner of a suburb. So,
bottled water is the norm. Or worse, coloured water, water with fizz and
possibly traces of pesticide sold at box-like shops, on hilltops and along
seashores.
Despite film stars and cricketers pushing
bottled water with a smile, I understand that many people find it an
unnecessary market intrusion. Especially when the bottlers happen to be
operating next door. These entrepreneurs dig holes into the belly of the earth
and suck out the entire area’s supply of groundwater. Ask the people of
Plachimada in Palakkad, Kerala, where they caught a cola giant in the act and
forced it to down shutters.
6. Fishing: In the Sea of Greed (Anand
Patwardhan, English, 44 mins)
Traditional fishing communities around the
world are under threat of mass displacement by the industrial fishing practices
of gigantic factory ships. Private capital, with the aid of international
lending agencies, have embarked on a mindless offensive to catch fish in
quantities unheard of until now.
This frightening abuse of the seas has
been actively promoted by governments in the developing world, as territorial
waters are handed
over to transnational corporations to meet debt obligations. Further, agencies
like the World Bank have promoted aquaculture prawn farming as a foreign
currency earner in the Third World.
The primary victims are poverty-stricken
rice growers and fishing communities. Salination of ground water causes a
scarcity of fresh drinking water as waste from prawn farms are emptied into
nearby rivers and other fresh water bodies. Within years, large stretches of
land are abandoned as unfit for agriculture.
Fishing in the Sea of Greed documents the
response of one fishing community in India to the "rape and run"
industries that have begun to dominate their livelihood and decimate their
environment. Under the leadership of the National Fishworkers Forum and the
World Forum of Fishworkers and Fish Harvesters, workers are fighting not only
for their jobs, but for the survival of the world's coastal communities and
ecosystems.
7. Farmers in hi-tech world
(Peace, Hindi, 74 mins.)
Documenting the
sufferings of farmers and analyzing farmers suicides in Andhra Pradesh.
8. A Valley Refuses to Die (K P Sasi,
English/Hindi/Gujarati, 41 mins)
The Narmada Valley project is
characterized as the biggest planned disaster in the world. It has been subject
to wide debate at a national and international level.
This film projects the controversy through
interviews of villagers, adivasis, environmentalists, social scientists and
activists
9. Words On Water (Sanjay Kak, English
subtitles, 85 mins)
A film that explores the struggle of the
people of the Narmada Valley against the big dams that threaten to submerge
their lands and displace them from their homes, traditions and cultures
Kak’s film joins the growing filmic
documentation of the struggle of the people of the Narmada Valley against the
big dams that threaten to submerge their lands, displace them from their homes
and slowly but surely, cut them off from their traditions and their cultures.
Since the 1950s, when Prime Minister Nehru
declared big dams to be the ‘temples of modern India’ the Indian government has
held a uni-dimensional stand on this mode of ‘development’. However, non-violent
resistance has a long history in the sub-continent. As early as the 1920s
Senapati Bapat led a similar movement against the construction of the Mulshi
dam near Pune that submerged villages
and displaced peoples.
The centre of the film is the Narmada Bachao
Andolan and its dedication to non-violent and democratic means of resistance.
The tireless efforts of the activists and the Indian government’s growing
impatience with these (completely peaceful and legal) protests are the opposing
poles that give the film its internal dynamic.
One of the most ironic sequences in the
film is when the protestors are in New Delhi, hoping to meet the head of the
World Bank. Fearing that the ‘mob’ may get unruly, the police turns a water
cannon onto the demonstration, releasing water under pressure onto the very
peoples who have come there to demand their right to control their own water.
Kak’s rhetorical commentary is aggressive
and minces no words, but it works powerfully to make explicit the connections
between the movement of global capital, the collusion of national governments
and the exploitation of indigenous and marginalised peoples. For those who have
been following this vibrant movement and its steady growth as a symbol of
non-violent resistance as well as a symbol of grassroots protest against
globalisation, there is nothing new in Words on Water.
But for those who are fuzzy about the
facts, the film encapsulates them and their consequences with eloquence and
conviction. The Indian Supreme Court recently lifted the stay on the
construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, allowing the project to continue with
impunity. The question that the movement and all that it stands for now faces
is “What next? What now?” While the film does not answer these questions, the
discussion it generates will, perhaps, indicate the way forward.
10. Kol Tales (Sehjo Singh,
Hindi/Bundelkhandi with English subtitles, 70 mins.)
The Kols, a tribe that inhabits the
badlands of Bundelkhand, struggle with bonded labour, the fraudulent seizure of
their lands and a national democracy that does not seem to include them in any
way at all
Sehjo Singh and Anwar Jamal’s film on the
Kol tribe is set in the badlands of Bundelkhand, in northern Madhya Pradesh.
For the rest of the nation, this region is notorious for its dacoits and
general lawlessness. But the film reveals more than lawlessness and the rule of
the gun – this is a region apparently untouched by more than half a century of
Indian independence. Feudalism and casteism are the order of the day – the
vestiges of democracy lie in ruined courthouses and an even more decrepit and
dysfunctional legal system.
The central issue of the film is the
exploitation of the Kols, the indigenous inhabitants of the area. They struggle
with bonded labour, the fraudulent seizure of their lands and a national
democracy that does not seem to include them in any way at all. The film opens
with preparations for an Adivasi rally, where the Kols will demand
redistribution of lands and recognition for themselves as a Scheduled Tribe so
that they have reservations for employment. But this hopeful moment of
participatory democracy is soon overshadowed as the film unfolds with more and
more examples of endemic oppression. There is an endless cycle of debt for
these dispossessed people who work as labourers on lands that rightfully belong
to them. When they seek legal redress through the courts and the land
registration offices, they are confronted with a monolithic system that unites
against them with the power of caste, money, education, the state and
eventually, guns. Even as we hear the story of the Kols and their struggle
through Bhim, we are also told the story of a Brahmin family that has become,
over the generations landowners and civil contractors, even though these professions
are not really appropriate for their high-caste status. The first is the story
of a community, the second, the story of a clan. The young man of the Brahmin
family, Rajan, wants to go to the city, but care of the family possessions
keeps him rooted in the area. Rajan’s father appears to be the effective
‘ruler’ of the village, righteous in his religious rituals and his morning
exercise, righteous even in the fact that he has unlicensed gun-toting
bodyguards because of the dacoit threat in the region.
Nothing seems to have changed over the
years, except that now, landowners have trouble finding labour for their
fields. Apparently, the traditional
labourers, presumably the Kols, have been incited against their thankless (and
penniless) ‘jobs’.
11. McLibel (Franny Armstrong, English, 85
mins.)
McLibel is the story of two ordinary
people who humiliated McDonald's in the biggest corporate PR disaster in
history. McDonald's loved using the UK libel laws to suppress criticism. Major
media organisations like the BBC and The Guardian crumbled and apologised. But
then they sued gardener Helen Steel and postman Dave Morris.
In the longest trial in English legal
history, the "McLibel Two" represented themselves against McDonald's
£10 million legal team. Every aspect of the corporation's business was
cross-examined: from junk food and McJobs, to animal cruelty, environmental
damage and advertising to children.
Outside the courtroom, Dave brought up his
young son alone and Helen supported herself working nights in a bar. McDonald's
tried every trick in the book against them. Legal manoeuvres. A visit from
Ronald McDonald. Top executives flying to London for secret settlement
negotiations. Even spies.
Seven years later, in February 2005, the
marathon legal battle finally concluded at the European Court of Human Rights.
And the result took everyone by surprise - especially the British Government.
McLibel is not just about hamburgers. It
is about the importance of freedom of speech now that multinational corporations
are more powerful than countries.
12. The Bee, The Bear, And The Kuruba
(Vinod Raja, Kannada with english subtitles, 63 mins.)
It was a sacred home, where mutual
interdependency between ancient tribes and mother nature created a unique
harmony that has existed for ages. Now it is a national park, monitored and
regulated by the state. It is the forests of Nagarahole and Kakanatoke in
Southern India. Until the early seventies, the forests were home to the
Kurubas, its original inhabitants.
However, forest authorities have forced
these people to abandon the only home they have ever known. With some personal
interviews and a closer look into a few of this individual¹s lives, a greater
understanding is gained of the many things that these forests actually represent.
This moving film journeys through the struggles that the Kurubas have endured
through their eviction from their ancestral lands and the hardships that they
have encountered while integrating into modern society. What will become of
them? The forests will be taken care of by the state, but can we say the same
for the Kurubas?
The film opens with a song and a story
about the Kurubas’ intimate connection with honey and the bear. The bear and
the ancestors of the tribe had always shared the honey and lived in the forest
together. The forest is the place of the ancestors and the gods, a home that
nourishes and provides and sustains, but more than that, it is also the locus
of identity for the Kuruba. Take them away from their forest and they are in a
state of profound existential exile: there is nothing left – rituals,
community, tradition, songs and stories, all die with dislocation. Or, as the
developers prefer to call it, 'relocation'.
In fact, the Kuruba have their own
solution for how to deal with a habitat that is rightfully theirs, one that
they shared with animals for generations and centuries. The problem that
'eco-developers' have with the Kuruba is that they occupy a zone that has been
designated for the protection of elephants, deer, bison and the like. In the
artificially created wildlife preserve, there are simply too many humans.
Government policy is to keep the animals and move the humans out.
13. Development at Gunpoint (K P Sasi,
English, 36 mins)
The southern part of the state of Orissa in
India, contains one of the richest bauxite reserves in the country. Large
aluminium companies, both in India and abroad, who know that there are billions
of dollars of profit to be made from this region if only the local population
could be moved out, have been trying to establish their base there. The region
has also seen some of the most sustained and vigorous struggles by the local
people against the threat of displacement.
A new phase of the people's struggle
against bauxite mining was ushered in, in the year 2000, when on December 16,
the police gunned down three local adivasis and injured many others in an
incident of unprovoked firing in Kashipur block, an area that has come to be
closely associated with the resistance movement.
Development at Gunpoint takes a look at
the struggle against bauxite mining through interviews with the local people.
Using word and song, people describe what the land means to them and how they
will not be moved at any cost.
14. Development Flows From the Barrel of a
Gun (Biju Toppo and Meghnath, Hindi with English subtitles, 58 mins)
This film presents and examines
orchestrated state violence against indigenous and local peoples when they
protest against development projects on their lands
This film’s wonderfully evocative title sets the tone and the
stage for the material that it covers. Quite simply, the film presents and
examines orchestrated state violence against indigenous and local peoples when
they rally and protest against development projects on their lands. Rather than
focusing on a single instance, the filmmakers strengthen their thesis by
recording examples from all over the country: Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. In each case, using the local police force,
the state has brutalised and killed protestors, often on trumped up charges of
violence.
What makes the state’s reaction even more
reprehensible is the fact that these protests are legitimate by virtue of the
fact that the disputed projects are all located on lands that are ‘scheduled’,
ie protected by the Constitution for indigenous peoples. Whether it be the
aluminum corporation in Kashipur, Orissa, or the big dam of Koel Karo in
Jharkhand, or the World Bank-funded forestry project in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh,
or the steel plant in Nagarnar, Chhattisgarh, or the new port in Umbergaon,
Gujarat, the development projects in question have been located on lands
collectively owned and inhabited by tribal peoples. At the first hint of
organised protest, the police are sent in. They loot and ransack homes, steal
food and livestock, beat up women, arrest men and use their lathis, guns and
bullets freely, arguing always that they were attacked first.
Of all the cases the film records, the
most well-known is the murder of Col Pratap Save who spearheaded the movement
against the new port at Umbergaon. The reason this incident got national
attention was precisely the fact that the police had used their
state-sanctioned might against a former army officer, a man who had served the
nation. Thousands of other atrocities go unrecorded outside local papers
because the individuals killed are disenfranchised (and therefore, invisible
and unimportant) tribal peoples.
15. Vieques: A Lost Paradise or Paradise
Lost? (Ruben Arvizu, English, 25 mins.)
Vieques derives its name from the Taino
Indian word for small island (bieques). It was annexed to Puerto Rico in 1854.
When the US Navy arrived in 1941, there
were 10,362 inhabitants in Vieques and 8,000 tons of sugar was produced that
year. The Navy expropriated two thirds of the total land, including most of the
land used for farming. La Central Playa Grande did the last milling in 1942.
The Navy admitted the use of Depleted
Uranium projectiles during exercises on Vieques in March of 1999. This
information came at a time when the Puerto Rican government at the request of
the Vieques Municipal Assembly and the Committee for Rescue and Development of
Vieques was preparing an epidemiological study to investigate why Vieques
suffers a 27% higher cancer rate than the rest of Puerto Rico. The attested
activity of the Trident nuclear submarines on Puerto Rico¹s waters is a
flagrant violation of the Tlatelolco Treaty which calls for " banning
tests, use, production or acquisition of any type of nuclear weapons, its storage,
installation, delivery or possession in the Latin America and Caribbean
zone". The United States signed the Treaty in 1982 and Puerto Rico was
considered in the Latin American zone.
Puerto Rico hopes that the nuclear
nations will listen to them and will eliminate without delay the nuclear
weapons, that terrible technology capable of wiping out the miracle of life
from our beautiful blue planet.
16. Born in debt (Daljit Ami, English, 40
mins.)
Exposition of chronic problem being faced
by the rural labour of Punjab in great detail and backed up by extensive
research base. It is a poignant account of Punjab’s rural dignity which remains
heavily indebted. The film traces the root of suicides of farmers in the rural
Punjab and throws light on how farmers sold off their properties to uphold
their dignity and how those who could not do so, ended their lives in
desperation. It deals with the sensitive issue of declining land holdings of
small farmers in Punjab and their consequent struggle to save their honour.
1. Hey Ram! Genocide in the Land of
Gandhi (Gopal Menon, 2002, 25 mins)
An old
man asks: "What are we going to do now? All that we built up over 40 years
has been destroyed in a single day. What will we do now?" He looks at the
young women sitting with him on a narrow wooden bed -- daughter-in-law and
grandchild -- and the few fragments of household belongings that remain with
them, all lying there on that bed. An entire lifetime of hard work, sacrifice
and dreams dumped right there on that bed. The old man is just one of the
several Muslims who have lived to tell the horrifying stories of the organized
brute violence that was unleashed against their community in Gujarat for more
than a month.
The documentary is a stark unembellished account
of people who saw their family members and friends being raped, burnt, beaten;
people who saw their life's work go up in flames before their eyes; people who
have now been herded into camps and are living under impossibly inhuman
conditions -- like a 100 toilets to 10,000 people -- waiting for relief
measures to reach them from somewhere; and finally of people who once had a
name, a family and a life, but have now been reduced to charred contorted,
macabre skeletons somewhere on the streets of Ahmedabad or Baroda or anywhere
else in Gujarat
2. Gujarat: a laboratory of
Hindu Rashtra, fascism (Suma Josson, 2003, 50mins)
Set in the post-Godhra violence which was
unleashed in Gujarat during February 2002, examines the extent to which the
fascist ideologies of the communal forces have infiltrated into the
sub-conscious of an ordinary Gujarati Hindu.
Dharmaj, Siswa, Mogri are a few villages in the district of Anand,
Gujarat, where the Muslims who had been living there for decades have not been
allowed to come back. Their homes and businesses were burnt
down/looted/destroyed during the post-Godhra carnage.
It covers about 14 villages in Anand
District. It also shows that Gujarat is a fertile ground for fascism to grow:
low economic growth, the general mood of despair among the labour classes,
disproportionate rate of human development factors, discrimination towards
caste, and so on.
3. I Live in Behrampada
(Madhusree Dutta, 1993, 46 mins)
As a sequel to demolition of Babri masjid
in December 1992, majoritarianism in India turned its attention to its own
citizens. The communal riots that followed reduced Bombay into two distinct
communities and also created an underclass of citizens of the Muslim minority.
In this context, I Live in Behrampada traces the history of a Muslim ghetto,
which was first inhabited soon after the independence of the country and grew
through the efforts of the slum dwellers who turned the slimy marsh land into
solid ground. But, in the face of development, yesterday’s pathfinders have become
today’s interlopers.
Is the dividing line language, culture
and religion or class?
4. Ram ke Naam, In the Name Of God (Anand
Patwardhan, 1991, 75 mins)
Since gaining independence in 1947, India
has been a secular state. But now, as religious fundamentalism grips much of
India's population, the greatest danger to the nation's extremely strained
social fabric may come not from Sikh or Muslim separatists, but from Hindu
fundamentalists who are appealing to the 83% Hindu majority to redefine India as
a Hindu nation.
IN THE NAME OF GOD focuses on the
campaign waged by the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to destroy a 16th
century mosque in Ayodhya said to have been built by Babar, the first Mughal
Emperor of India. The VHP claim the mosque was built at the birthsite of the
Hindu god Ram after Babar razed an existing Ram temple. They are determined to
build a new temple to Ram on the same site. This controversial issue, which
successive governments have refused to resolve, has led to religious riots
which have cost thousands their lives, culminating in the mosque's destruction
by the Hindus in December of 1992. The resulting religious violence immediately
spread throughout India and Pakistan leaving more than 5,000 dead, and causing
thousands of Indian Muslims to flee their homes.
Filmed prior to the mosque's demolition,
IN THE NAME OF GOD examines the motivations which would ultimately lead to the
drastic actions of the Hindu militants, as well as the efforts of secular
Indians - many of whom are Hindus - to combat the religious intolerance and
hatred that has seized India in the name of God.
5. Final Solution (Rakesh Sharma, 2003,
209/148 mins)
Final Solution is a study of the politics
of hate. Set in Gujarat during the period Feb/March 2002 - July 2003, the film
graphically documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through
a study of the 2002 genocide of Moslems in Gujarat. It specifically examines
political tendencies reminiscent of the Nazi Germany of early/mid-1930s. Final
Solution is anti-hate/ violence as “those who forget history are condemned to relive it”.
Part 1: Pride and Genocide deals with the
carnage and its immediate aftermath. It examines the patterns of pre-planned
genocidal violence (by right-wing Hindutva cadres), which many claim was
state-supported, if not state-sponsored. The film reconstructs through
eyewitness accounts the attack on Gulbarg and Patiya (Ahmedabad) and acts of
barbaric violence against Moslem women at Eral and Delol/Kalol (Panchmahals)
even as Chief Minister Modi traverses the state on his Gaurav Yatra.
Part 2: The Hate Mandate documents the
poll campaign during the Assembly elections in Gujarat in late 2002. It records
in detail the exploitation of the Godhra incident by the right-wing propaganda
machinery for electoral gains. The film studies and documents the situation
months after the elections to find shocking faultlines – voluntary ghettoisation,
segregation in schools, formal calls for economic boycott of Moslems and
continuing acts of violence.
6. Godhra Tak (S Chakravorty, English
& Hindi, 60 mins.)
Godhra Tak: The Terror Trail investigates
the Godhra train burning and the subsequent rioting that killed over 2000
Muslims in Gujarat, India. Chakravorty retraces the route of the first batch of
karsevaks from Gujarat to Ayodhya and back, and documents the terror they
unleashed en route, and the incident at Godhra railway station.
7. Hate funding in UK (Gopal Menon,
English, 30 mins.)
Exposing the Hindutva fund-raising
efforts in UK through Sewa Bharti for their pogroms in Gujarat and India.
8. Ayodhya to Varanasi—Prayers For
Peace (Suma Josson, 60 mins.)
By not taking religion seriously enough
and by refusing to critically engage with it, secularists in India have
inadvertently allowed militant right-wing groups to virtually monopolise
religious discourse. Religion is as a double-edged sword. While in its
institutionalized forms it functions, by and large, to protect the interests of
dominant social groups it can also be wielded as a weapon to critique the
hegemony of established elites. In enabling religion to play this role secular
intellectuals and activists have an important part to play. Working along with
religious people, rather than against them, in order to promote alternate,
progressive understandings of religion is an urgent task before secular
activists in India today.
This is the message that this powerfully
evocative film seeks to convey.
The focus of the film is on the politics
of Hindutva and on the diverse ways in which significant numbers of Hindus in
and around Ayodhya opposed to it interrogate it, but it also highlights certain
Muslim voices. ‘Ordinary’ Muslim craftsmen in Ayodhya are shown making wooden
sandals that are worn by Hindu sadhus and stringing garlands that adorn the
statues in Hindu temples, highlighting the close links between Muslims and
Hindus in Ayodhya. The film also depicts certain Sufi shrines in the town,
where Hindu pilgrims outnumber Muslims, a Hindu temple built by with the help
of a Muslim family, and another temple whose manager for many years was a Shia
Muslim. Muslim respondents speak nostalgically of the tradition of Hindu-Muslim
harmony that Ayodhya was once known for, and others, while denouncing the
Hinduvta fascists, also critique reactionary Muslim leaders who, along with
Hindutva outfits, worked to turn what was a local dispute into a veritable war
between Muslims and Hindus on the national level.
This film is a powerful critique of the
fascist project of the Hindutva brigade. While denouncing the use of religion
for serving Hindutva’s agenda, it also points to urgent need to recover
religion from the merchants of terror so that it can be fashioned into a means
for inter-community dialogue and liberation.
9. In Dark Times (Gauhar Raza, Hindi/Urdu,
24 mins.)
How fascism grows and takes over
unsuspecting societies
Gauhar Raza’s black and white film uses
footage from Hitler’s Germany and the triumphalism of the Third Reich to make a
chilling point about the way fascism grows and takes over (unsuspecting)
societies. This is a film about learning lessons from history and examining the
present in terms of the past.
In Dark Times appears to be a simple film
of grainy images from a faraway history interspersed with an apparently random
selection of shots from close to home. A careful viewing, however, removes the
veil of subtlety and the message comes through loud and clear. It is the
commentary that lifts the film out of the ordinary. Bertoldt Brecht’s powerful
words and warnings (through extracts from his play scripts and poems) about how
a society can be easily manipulated by clever rhetoric and cynical stirring up
of bourgeois fears ring harsh and true.
The film impressionistically traces
Hitler’s rise as the leader of a democratically elected minority party that
eventually takes over the country. Using unemployment and economic depression
as a springboard in a war-ravaged country, the Nazi propaganda machine starts
to lay the blame: on communists, and Jews and intellectuals. With amazing
swiftness, a nation low on self-esteem and a people struggling to make ends
meet transforms itself into a juggernaut of prejudice and hatred. Those that
can afford to leave do, other dissenters are eliminated and ethnic cleansing
begins under the very noses of polite society. By an inexorable internal logic,
the Nazis target art and culture, persecuting artists, burning books and
creating a national culture that is purely ‘German’. All this with the tacit
consent of the electorate. By raising fears and creating bogeys, the state can
easily persuade its citizens to give up their democratic rights, or encourage
them to stand by and watch as the rights of the ‘threats’ to society are
trampled upon.
10. Father, Son and Holy War (Anand
Patwardhan, 1995, 120 mins)
In the politically polarized world,
universal ideals are rare. In India, as in many regions, the vacuum is filled
by religious zealousness. Minorities are scapegoats of every calamity as
nations subdivide into religious and ethnic zones, each seemingly eager to annihilate
the other or extinguish itself on the altar of martyrdom.
FATHER, SON AND HOLY WAR explores in two
parts the possibility that the psychology of violence against "the
other" may lie in male insecurity, itself an inevitable product of the
very construction of "manhood."
Part 1: TRIAL BY FIRE
TRIAL BY FIRE, a reference to the ordeal
Hindu god-king Lord Rama tested his wife Sita's fidelity with, looks at the
communal fires which have consumed India in recent years. "Sati," a
rite by which Roop Kanwar was thrown on her husband's funeral pyre; the upper
castes' "purifying" fire rituals and the communal fires that ravaged
Bombay after the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya are set against a small
group of fire fighters: a Rajasthani woman who, against the odds, condemns
Sati; a Muslim woman who battles gender discriminatory laws; and a band of
Hindus and Muslims who march for communal harmony in the riot-torn streets of
Bombay.
Part 2: HERO PHARMACY
HERO PHARMACY examines
"manhood" in the context of religious strife. The Hindu majority has
been raised on stories of marauding Muslim invaders who raped their women,
destroyed their temples, and forced religious conversions. Today, some Hindus
demand revenge for crimes committed centuries ago. They reject non-violence as
impotence and set out to be "real men."
In this context, the Muslim minority -
despite fears of genocide - will not take things lying down. They too are
driven by the imperative to be "real men." The result is carnage.
Is violence inherent in the human
condition? Historically, people have co-existed for over 50,000 years in
relative harmony. Wars began less than 5,000 years ago. But today the
"macho" man rules in every land. Where do we go from here?
11. Fishers Of Men (Ranjan Kamath & Padmavathi Rao, Eng. subtitles,
117 mins.)
Examining the politics of religious conversion in India
For over a century, a substantial number
of Adivasis or, tribals of the Chottanagpur plateau - an area comprising
eastern Madhya Pradesh and portions of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal, in India
- have embraced Christianity in order to free themselves from the shackles of
bonded labour and feudal oppression still prevalent in rural India. Adivasis
have never managed to assert their religious, cultural or political identity.
They have been treated as outcasts of society, with no individual rights.
Through the efforts of Christian missionaries, generations of tribal converts -
particularly Oraons - have made tremendous social progress and have been
asserting their identity. A combination of an education and Christianity have
helped the Adivasis establish an alternate identity, outside the Hindu caste
system. They have undermined feudal authority, much to the consternation of
Hindu fundamentalists who are feeling insecure. Whilst the demand for a tribal
homeland called Jharkand has gained tremendous momentum over the last five
decades, Hindu fundamentalist organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have held the Christian missionaries
singularly responsible for encouraging the Jharkand movement. After decades of
apparent harmony, there has been a recent increase in Hindu revivalism, in a
bid to split tribal unity along religious lines and thus weaken the Jharkand
movement.. The countermeasures taken by organisations like the RSS, VHP and the
VKA include, harassment of missionaries through the legal system and
intimidation of Christian tribals using force and terror, which has resulted in
a growing mutual distrust. As part of the revivalist campaign, Dilip Singh
Judev of Jashpur, Member of Parliament has devised Operation Ghar Vapasi (Home
Coming), which is the widespread 're-conversion' of Christian tribals to
Hinduism, under the auspices of the All India Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. In the absence
of dialogue between Hindu revivalists and Christian tribals, this film is an
effort to understand how the two communities will co-exist within a secular
Indian fabric, despite the divergent religious, cultural and social perceptions
that both communities currently have of each other.
1. Crossing the Lines: Kashmir, Pakistan,
India (Pervez Hoodboy & Zia Mian, 2004,47 mins)
The Film is a story of people at war over
borders and boundaries. After four wars, Kashmiris and their land are divided
between Pakistan and India, the source of recurring crises. The next war may
well be a nuclear war. In this tragedy, each side tells the story of the
injustice and violence of the other, and feels only the suffering of their own.
This path-breaking independent documentary film, made in Pakistan, challenges
us to look at Kashmir with new eyes and to hope for a new way forward.
2.
"Hanjees" Livelihood At Crossroad (Snehsis Das, Eng, 41 mins.)
The focus of the film that, how
'Shikaras" and 'HouseBoats' lost their glory and the owners of houseboats
and shikaras have been suffering for the last 15 years because of militancy in
Kashmir. Tourist inflow trickled down because of the terrorist activity in
Kashmir. Above all, the environmental degradation of lakes and rivers in
Kashmir is alarming. Lakes are shrinking because of encroachments. Giving
special focus to the community of the 'Hanjees,' the film justifies few
characters and how they sustained their livelihood during a troubled span of 15
years. Taking their example, the film tries to portray the present state of
Kashmir.
3. "I AM WATING….." Half Widows of
Kashmir (Sushil & Shabnam, English, 40 mins.)
A documentary about the men disappeared in
Kashmir during the last 16 years of unending conflict….
A documentary about how disappearance of men weave into the lives of women, children and relatives…
A documentary about the phenomenon of
‘half- Widows’; the survivor victims….
This is a story of missing people, boys and men who were picked up by
security forces and then simply disappeared. The location is Kashmir.
Sandwiched between India and Pakistan, Kashmir is a battleground for both.
Since the men are missing, not declared dead their wives are not widows but
‘half widows.’
The ‘half widows’ need extraordinary courage in living. Personally they
live with the memories of their love. They have to suddenly switch from being
the woman in the veil at home to a bread-earner. Face society who treats them
as unattached property as it treats most single woman in India. And all this in
a war zone where anybody could get picked up or shot by an Indian security
person or by any one of the militants roaming in the valley.
The women and children tell their own stories. Their dreams, fears,
aspirations and the hardships. Their faces reflect their tension. As the years
have gone by, many have learnt to live with their hopes and aspirations while
some are still caught in conflicts with their in-laws, the state, religion and
day to day livelihood. Their psychiatric problems add to the statistic that
Kashmir has the highest number of psychotic patients in the world. These women
are true survivors of a cruel period in the history of this ‘paradise on
earth’.
4. Manipur in the Shadow of AFSPA (Ajay
Bhardwaj, 52 mins.)
Produced by : Harsh Dobhal, Human Rights
Law Network & Anhad
‘Manipur in the Shadow of AFSPA (Armed
Forces Special Powers Act 1958) is a documentary about the routine violence
perpetrated by the Army in the North East, particularly in Manipur, in the name
of national security. Highlighting the anguish of Manipuri people, the
documentary puts the enactment and misuse of AFSPA in a historical perspective
and the extreme resentment by the Manipuri people and civil society groups over
the last five decades.
In a moving sequence, the documentary
highlights the rampant lawlessness in a region where incidents of rapes, killings,
army excesses, arbitrary detentions, tortures and repressions are the order of
the day. That for the people of Manipur this dreaded law has brought with it
tales of untold sufferings—midnight knocks, searches, forced captures,
innumerable incidents of torture, un-notified detentions, instances of sudden
disappearances and rapes more often just on the basis of a mere suspicion, and
ostensibly in order to “maintain public order”.
While army atrocitites have often gone
unnoticed or unheeded by mainstream media for decades, ‘Manipur in the Shadow
of AFSPA’ shows shocking images of extreme resentment by Manipuri women that
stormed Army Headquarters in Imphal earlier last year, following rape and
brutal murder of Thangjam Manorama, and a protracted fight for justice by an
indomitable Sharmila who has been on fast for last five years and is being
nasally fed, forcibly, ever since.
Expressing grave concern over gross
violation of human rights in the region, the documentary records eminent
personalities from judiciary, academia, legal establishment and renowned human
rights activists demanding immediate repeal of what they describe as ‘black
law’.
Narrating tales of torture, sufferings,
and inhuman treatment by the army, the film captures poignant testimonies of
victims of this “ black law”, one after another, before a “ People’s Tribunal”
in New Delhi earlier this year.
“Manipur in the Shadow of AFSPA”, is about
one of the most draconian laws that the Parliament has enacted in its
legislative history.
5. Ek Khoobsurat
Jahaz (Gauhar Raza, Hindi, 19mins.)
This film tells about the forty lakhs of
life forms that exist on this planet we live in. In the past few million years
they have all boarded the planet one by one. Human beings were the last to
board it. If one sees the life of earth as one year, the presence of human
beings has been only for 48 minutes and our civilisation is only 28 seconds
old. In this backdrop the film examines how human beings, who boarded the jahaz
is threatening the existence of jahaz itself. The film was made after India and
Pakistan conducted the nuclear tests. It also shows how war and arsenal have
become the greatest threat to humanity and the planet. In this context it
elaborates the holocaust that a nuclear war can create. The film deals at
length about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki massacre along with scientific
information about the bomb.
6. Naga
Story: The Other Side Of Silence (Gopal Menon, English, 62 mins.)
The Naga Story _The Other Side of Silence_ is the
first comprehensive film on the Nagas, a three million strong indigenous
people, who occupy the North-East frontier of the Indian subcontinent. The
film, which took five years in the making, documents human rights abuses
suffered by the Nagas in more than 50 years of the existence of Independent
India - with interviews, on-foot coverage and views from different sections of
the Naga population including various political formations and factions.
"A film that captures the resistance, the
despair, the anguish, the hopes and aspirations of a generation of Nagas in
their struggle for self determination and their overwhelming desire for
peace…"
7. PAPA 2: disappearances in Kashmir (Gopal
Menon, English, 30 mins.)
PAPA 2, an interrogation camp among many
other in Kashmir. Young men are taken away by the army for interrogation and
they never come back. Over 2000 youth are among the missing list.
The film deals with the harrowing tales
of the families trying to trace their young men in the quagmire of rampant
human rights abuse.
8. In Memory of Friends (Anand Patwardhan,
60 mins.)
IN MEMORY OF FRIENDS documents the
violence and terror in Punjab,
India - a land torn apart by religious
fundamentalists and a repressive government.
After examining the political turmoil of
the late1970s and rise of Sikh fundamentalism the film concentrates on the
legacy of Bhagat Singh, a young socialist hanged by the British in 1931 at age
23. Singh has since become a legendary figure. Today the State eulogizes him as
a nationalis while Sikh separatists portray him as a Sikh militant. In fact,
Singh was neither. Just prior to his death he wrote a book which he entitled
Why I Am An Atheist.
A band of brave Sikhs and Hindus carry
Bhagat Singh's secular legacy from village to village. In the religiously
charged countryside ideas of internationalism now carry a price.
IN MEMORY OF FRIENDS is an incisive look
at identity politics in India today.
Awards:
Silver Conch, Bombay Documentary Festival,
1990
Special Jury Prize, Mannheim International
Festival, Germany, 1990
National Award, Best Investigative
Documentary, India, 1990
9. A Night of Prophecy (Amar Kanwar,
English subtitles, 77 mins.)
Amar Kanwar’s film takes the viewer from
Kashmir to Andhra Pradesh, recording songs of oppression, pain, exclusion and
marginalisation
Amar Kanwar’s customary sensitivity guides
the viewer along a difficult journey across the subcontinent, pausing to listen
to songs of oppression and pain, of dreams denied, of crushed hopes and broken
promises. Far from being merely “songs of protest,” the songs in the film are
testimony to an exclusion and marginalisation systematically perpetrated by a
nation and a society built on inequality and injustice.
Kanwar has mastered the art of gentle
persuasion in his films, of making powerful political statements without the
sound and fury that typically accompanies critiques of this depth and
magnitude. There is no commentary berating the government for its failures and
society for its willful and arrogant maintenance of inequality. But lyrical as
this film is, the viewer is never allowed to forget that A Night of Prophecy is
not about poets and poetry but about the subjects of these poems: the people
that speak the words and what they speak of.
The film opens in the rock-scapes of a
parched Andhra Pradesh where a singer sends his song into the open sky. It
moves to the belly of the beast, under the Dadar bridge in Bombay, where a poet
slams his anger against the dark and dripping stones.
Thence, back to Andhra where the
poet-revolutionary Gadar’s words swirl and dance as they call for change. The
next segment takes us to Nagaland’s hills of green and gold where choirs sing
of freedom and gravestones stand as silent witnesses to generations of dead.
And finally, we are in Kashmir, listening to poets as they speak to the world
about spilled blood and the loss of innocence.
With the film, we stop at a few of the
many troubled places within the nation that seethe and writhe below the
constructed surface of apparent prosperity, peace and progress. Sometimes we
hear anger, at other times we hear sorrow, betrayal and despair, but never do
these songs join the chorus of congratulation about a vibrant democracy and the
positive changes since Independence. Rather, they are dissonant with national
panegyrics and our misfortune lies in that these songs, even as they harmonise
with each other, rarely move beyond their own regions.
But it is we that are diminished by not
being able to hear this alternative symphony: we remain unaware of how many of
our brothers and sisters continue to suffer as we gain ground in WTO
negotiations, host the World Social Forum and elect a new government at the
centre. The oppressions we hear about in these songs are endemic, built into a
system that gives so few of us so much and so many of us so little, that allows
a tiny minority to be the beneficiaries of change and progress and keeps a
large segment of the population away from the newly laden banquet table.
If we do not hear these songs, our battles
remain inconclusive, our victories incomplete, our enemies unvanquished. Amar
Kanwar gives us a chance to listen and help sing the songs of the forgotten
fights in our midst.
10. Aftershocks: A rough guide to
democracy (Rakesh Sharma, English, 70 mins.)
On January 26, 2001 a devastating
earthquake struck Gujarat and left an estimated 20,000 people dead and over
100,000 homes destroyed. Filmmaker Rakesh Sharma was working as a relief
volunteer in the quake-effected zone, when he accidentally bumped into Gujarat
Mineral Development Company's (GMDC) acquisition survey team in the village of
Umarasar - and unexpected story began to reveal itself.
11. The other side of AIDS (Robin Scovill,
English, 87 mins.)
Take an unflinching look into an issue the
mainstream media doesn’t dare touch: the failure of the multi billion-dollar
war on AIDS. The Other Side of AIDS gives voice to a growing movement of
doctors, scientists, journalists, and HIV positives who reveal a tangled web of
conflicts of interest, political correctness and unresolved errors surrounding
AIDS.
After 20 years and more than $150 billion
in federally funded research, scientists still can’t explain how HIV causes
AIDS. Millions of people have been declared HIV-positive with tests that can’t
find the actual virus. The latest AIDS medications are taking more lives than
AIDS itself. One expert proposes that the cause and cure for AIDS is as near at
hand as our willingness to examine new ideas. Yet according to a prominent AIDS
researcher, anyone questioning HIV is a perpetrator of death and should be
jailed. Should AIDS advocates have the power to silence scientific debate? Has
saving face become more important than saving lives? Watch The Other Side of
AIDS and decide for yourself.
Award: Special Jury Prize, AFI Los Angeles
International Film Festival 2004
12. Manjuben, Truck Driver (Sherna Dastur,
Gujarati/Hindi with English subtitles, 52 mins.)
India’s only female truck driver wants to
travel and be free. And she has found a way to live the life she wants Dastur’s
film takes us on the road with Manju-ben as she drives her truck, just like her
male counterparts, from Gujarat to Delhi. The monotony of the road and the
incessant roar of the diesel engine inside the truck’s cabin do more to depict
the harsh reality of the trucker’s life than the pit stops on charpais in
dhabas along the way. But we also see Manju-ben off the road, having her
picture taken in a studio, hanging an oleograph of Shiv-Shakti on her wall (a
gender combination that she identifies with), running her office, sharing
time-off with a woman friend. Manju-ben is a courteous driver and a
conscientious one too, having her truck attended to regularly and under her
supervision.
Manju-ben was traditionally married, but divorced
her husband because she did not want to play the role of a wife, she wanted to
travel and be free. She does not see being a woman truck driver as particularly
significant, after all, there are women pilots and more. Driving a truck is
travelling, but her vacation time is also spent going to new places with her
women friends. In the one scene where we see her with a companion, Manju-ben
expresses the same frustration of dividing her time between earning and
spending money, as anyone else would.
Though Manju-ben does not make heavy
weather of her profession, it is clear that she is self-conscious as a person.
Not only has she had herself photographed regularly in various poses, she uses
these photos on her annual Diwali cards. The pictures and this film show her
for what she is, a remarkably independent young woman who has found a way to
live the life that she wants.
13. Resilient Rhythms (Gopal Menon,
English subtitles, 64 mins.)
India’s caste system places nearly 160
million people, the dalits, at the outskirts of society. It exploits their
services, especially to perform ”polluting” tasks, such as cutting the
umbilical cord, disposing of night-soil, tending cremation grounds, but at the
same time denies them acceptance as human beings. Resilient Rhythms deals with
a range of dalit responses to their marginalization, from armed struggle to
electoral politics.
14. The Die Is Caste (Ranjan Kamath, Hindi with English subtitles, 83
mins.)
is an appraisal of three decades of the Naxalite (extreme-left) movement
in the state of Bihar, in eastern India. It examines the role of Naxalites
(i.e. Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, People's War Group
and Maoist Communist Centre) as agents of socio-political change, employing
violence. Against the backdrop of Parliamentary and Legislative Assembly
elections in Bihar, between 1999-2001, the film portrays the change -over 30
years - in social and political status of the Scheduled Castes (i.e.
Dalits);the benefits accruing to the middle castes, engineered by the Mandal
Commission and the emergence of Laloo Yadav and the consequent violent backlash
from upper-caste landlord militias like the Ranvir Sena. The Die Is Caste is
thus an exploration of caste dynamics in Bihar and raises the question as to
whether any benefit has accrued to the Scheduled Castes or, are they mere pawns
on the political chessboard?
15. The (T)error of POTA (Gargi Sen, Neha
Mittal, Ranjan De, Eng subtitles, 105 mins.)
POTA, a legislation made ostensibly to
curb 'terrorism', has taken its toll on thousands of innocent people who have
been wrongfully booked under this Act. A public tribunal was organised in Delhi
in March 2004 by several groups from all across the country to highlight the
gross misuse of POTA. Victims ranging from eminent political leaders, activists
to innocent children from several states of India deposed at the tribunal. This
film is a documentation of the public tribunal that called for an end to this
draconian law.
Anti War Songs (video)
(For screenings at intervals & breaks)
Gazal and poetry by Sahir Ludhianvi, sung by Naseebo. Visuals of war and poverty.
Dance animation video on American war.
Lyrics by Kamaan, sung by B Jayashree
& Ramakrishna, dance by Malavika Tara Mohanan, music by Sumati & Kamaan
(based on tune ‘Surangani’)